Has the steering on your Dodge Ram lost that tight feel? It is very common for the front end of these heavy trucks to loosen up after seeing some miles. Dahmler-Chrysler has sent out many TSB's regarding excessive play in the O.E.M. track bar and weak performance in the O.E.M. steering stabilizer.

You may also hear from your dealer that there is an allowable amount of play in the upper ball joints before they need to be replaced. We have seen hundreds of trucks pass through the shop with any or all of these problems. Symptoms may vary from a slight shutter in the steering wheel to the dreaded death wobble.

Solution: We have put together the Front End Upgrade Kit to properly correct these issues the first time. By including all the key front end components in a package we can guarantee that your truck will feel and handle like a completely different truck. Tighter and more precise steering are both features that you can expect after installing this system.

Why it works: The reason that the Front End Upgrade Kit will make such a dramatic improvement is because we replace the 4 most problematic components in the front end:

Your factory-installed track bar has vulcanized rubber bushings on both ends that are prone to breakdown over time, causing excessive side-to-side movement of the front axle. Our Adjustable track Bar has a 3/4" chromoly rod end with a 7/8" threaded shaft at the axle end, and a heavy duty Urethane bushing at the frame end. This will eliminate any unwarranted movement from the axle and holds a much longer service life.

The O.E.M. steering stabilizer is of the "Oil Shock" variety, meaning that the piston is 100% submerged in oil. This type of stabilizer is limited to how much damping it can provide due to the amount of cavitation it exhibits. Our High Mount Steering Stabilizer uses an Internal Floating Piston (IFP) style stabilizer which has a separate chamber to house the nitrogen gas keeping it separate from the oil. Short of giving a physics discertation, we can tell you the stabilizer is much more effective at nearly eliminating cavitation, leading to more precise steering control and aversion from "steering shimmy". Our stabilizer is also 100% rebuildable.

The O.E.M. upper ball joint (actually a "pivot joint") uses a soft internal bronze bushing as the lubricant between the pin and the cup. The internal bushing can only tolerate a certain amount of load before it deforms and creates space for the pin to move laterally. Our Heavy Duty Upper Ball Joints are a 2 tiered design machined out of 4130 chromoly and heat treated to our specified hardness. This gives more than 100% more surface area for the ball joint to distribute the load. We eliminate any sort of bushing by using an aerospace moly-based dry lubricant. Being fully aware that your stock ball joints aren't serviceable in any way, we included provisions for a grease zerk fitting for a life-time of lubrication. To maximize greasing effectiveness, we have also incorporated internal grease ports for the grease to distribute evenly through the whole assembly.

If you thought the Upper Ball Joints were bad, prepare for even more dismal news on the factory Lower's. Chrysler decided to use a ball joint shaft that rides in a "plastic" liner (or cup) inside the lower ball joint to aid in lubricity and unrestricterd movement. The monumental downfall of this design is that the entirety of the truck's frontal weight is being placed squarely and solely on the steel ball pushing into the plastic liner. Immediately, this plastic liner starts to degrade and deform resulting in increased wear and movement. Learning from their mistakes, we designed a product that has no internal parts to wear out: the ball rides on an extremely hard and critically machined area inside the joint. The beauty of this design is that the Lower Ball Joint burnishes as it wears, creating a mirror smooth finish on all wear surfaces. Keep this joint well lubricated with grease and it will last the life span of your truck.